The Gamer's Quarter
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Q3 2006 6 Table of Contents 4 A Medium of Moments 44 Persona Visits E3 Mobile Gaming Comic 10 The N-Gage is Dead; Long Live An E3 Survival Guide the N-Gage 52 Introduction Nokia—N-GAGE 54 Hard Drive Optional 56 How to Get Back into E3 20 Medium Possibilities 59 E3: Unwrapped The Music of Double Dragon 2 62 The Drinks Are on Keith 30 Console Identity Intellivision Party—E3 Sega—SMS, GEN, GMG, SCD, SAT, SDC 66 Mechanical Donkeys 34 Crossing the Boobicon M.U.L.E.—A800, C64, NES, PC The Physics of Heavenly Bodies 80 Worship the Glitch 38 Death in the Impasse Valley The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion—WIN, 360 Fushigi no Dungeon 2: Furai no Shiren—SNES 82 A Broken Robot at the End of the World Planetarian: The Reverie of a 42 Your Mileage May Vary Little Plan Videogame Transportation 90 In on the Auction A Letter to SCEA 94 A Brief Note on Pacing in Videogames The Soul of Wit 98 Untold Tales of the Arcade Stand-Up Role-Playing Games 106 Stay Awhile, Stay Forever! Further Adventures in the British Games Press 120 Why Game? Reason #5: Scoring Culture 1 ArticleFrom the or Article or SectionEditor Title StaffSection Title Issue Overhaul of the machine they are attached to or an Editor In Chief: Staff Artists: By Matthew Williamson excuse for the price tag toted. Now I just Matthew “ShaperMC” Williamson Mariel “Kinuko” Cartwright [email protected] [email protected] wish I could get a handle on the games Managing Editor: Jonathan “Persona-Sama” Kim You may notice right from the (very lovely) themselves and see if they are trying to “Super” Wes Ehrlichman [email protected] cover that we have once again done an expand in the way they connect with the [email protected] Benjamin “Lestrade” Rivers entire overhaul of the magazine. This player. Assistant Editor: [email protected] should be the final format thanks to the Not all E3 was about new and fresh M. “dhex” O’Connor selfless efforts of the amazing Benjamin ideas though: if you wandered into the [email protected] Cover Art: Rivers. So now that things seem done with lonely and quiet Kentia Hall you would Copy Chief: Tony “Tablesaw” Delgado Mariel “Kinuko” Cartwright this issue I can finally get back to playing find yourself knee-deep in classic gaming. [email protected] [email protected] Steambot Chronicles, something I have The History of Video Games exhibit took been trying to do for a couple of weeks. up most of the center of the hall and Contributing Writers: The last three months have been ranged from arcade greats to console Editorial Staff: Ancil “dessgeega” Anthropy Colin “Wilkes” Booth exciting for the magazine. You will get abnormalities, and everything in between. [email protected] Matthew “Mr. Apol” Collier Mathew “aerisdead” Kumar more detail about it in the comic section I really wish that I had more time to spend Heather “Faithless “ Campbell Paul “SFC Lilly as told by Jonathan “Persona-Sama” there, as it feels like all I have been [email protected] “Don” Marco Michilli Kim, but a fair amount of The Gamer’s doing lately is exploring older and classic Ash and Dan Pringle J. R. “Mr. Mechanical” Freeman Marc Spraragen Quarter team got together at this year’s games. It is always refreshing to see that [email protected] Chris “GSL” St.Louis Electronic Entertainment Expo, and those an industry that seems to always seem to Amandeep “ajutla” Jutla Contributing Editors: that couldn’t make it were there in spirit. be moving forward is also remembering [email protected] “Zack” Fornaca E3 itself was good as well, but the team their past and displaying it with pride. Tim “Swimmy” McGowan finally coming together was really the I am almost done living in a hotel after [email protected] Page Layout & Design: highlight. ten months. I have realized that I play too Jeremy “ApM” Penner Benjamin “Lestrade” Rivers As seen at the show, the future of many games, or not enough. When I came [email protected] Website Design & Layout: games is headed in so many direc- to the hotel, I had only a handful of games Sergei “Seryogin” Servianov “Super” Wes Ehrlichman [email protected] tions. Some companies are focusing on and a bunch of systems, but I have come Image Researcher: innovative ways to play games, others to accumulate a collection of current- John “Szczepaniak” Ancil “dessgeega” Anthropy [email protected] are focusing on optimizing the way that system games while expanding on my games are currently played, and even older consoles. Now I just have to worry Andrew “Mister” Toups [email protected] more are focusing on both. With all the about how to move them all one thousand Francesco-Alessio “Randorama” Ursini All content © The Gamer’s Quarter 2006. All hardware in the headlines right now, miles. All things considered, I am far more [email protected] images and characters are retained by original it is fairly difficult to look at anything excited to see my wife than play games in company holding. specifically about games themselves. a proper setting. The games just seem to be an extension 2 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #6 Staff 3 it in their list, making carrier relation- ships vital to the developers. But how do the companies advertise these games? I recently observed an ad for Doom RPG on GameFAQs and rarely I’ll see an advertisement in an industry magazine, AArticleA rMediumticle oror but other than this, when is the last time you ever saw an ad for a mobile game? ofSSectione Momentsction TitleTitle Usually all a carrier provides is a small description, maybe a screenshot, and a price tag. This adds an inherent element Mobile Gaming also introduced in 2001. These were of danger to downloads, because at up By Matthew Collier games like Falling Numbers—where you to $9.00 a game, the price can add up would dial your keypad to correspond quickly for games that you may later fi nd The Buggles once sang in the 1970s with numbers falling from the top of the to suck. The interesting thing though, is about the video format killing the radio screen to the bottom—and classic, recog- that the sales curve for mobile games is star. All in all, they were right. Television nizable games like blackjack and poker. almost the opposite of console games. soap operas overtook traditional radio The technical development of the Whereas most console games are ad- dramas and destroyed an entire genre games improved dramatically with the vertised and marketed so that as many that many men and women sweated introduction of the J2ME Java Runtime people will get it at launch as possible, blood and tears over. However, one Environment. J2ME allowed most anyone most mobile games catch on slowly and genre, starting out as some pixels on a to make a Java application for a cell end up progressively selling better not monochrome screen, has the potential phone. Later on, the more powerful because of any direct marketing, but not to destroy, but save another genre Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless because of word of mouth. dear to us. (BREW) was developed, further pushing I recently talked to Taline Augereau, a Mobile gaming can save classic the envelope. With more memory and market researcher at Genplay. Genplay game design. colors than before, mobile gaming could has developed several in-house games To start off, let’s have some history. be more sophisticated than ever before. for mobile phones, as well as several The fi rst game to grace the screens of The quick development of technology and ports of popular Namco classics like mobile phones was a black-and-white resources for mobile gaming is interest- Galaga. It’s Taline’s opinion that while version of the seminal classic Snake. It ing. It’s twenty years of game design the market for the games is on the rise, was built into the Nokia 6110 phone and crammed into ten. It’s seeing what would mobile gaming will never be more than a was Snake’s simplest incarnation (as if happen if you gave game designers in the simple distraction, incapable of any sort Snake could be that complicated). You ’80s current hardware and told them to of artistic expression. Maybe we’ll never control an ever-growing line moving con- go nuts. see a Silent Hill or a Xenogears on a cell stantly around the screen, collecting dots Mobile gaming is a rapidly growing phone, but is this a bad thing? that lengthen you and trying not to crash industry. Business Week cites a study by Right now, if I open my phone, within into a wall or yourself, both of which end Screen Digest reporting that in 2010 the fi ve movements of my thumb, several the game. Food for thought: why would revenue from mobile-game downloads games are available to me. I can play Orcs we automatically interpret a line of pixels will be nearly $8.4 billion. The unique & Elves (a fantasy-themed role-playing as a snake? Why not a worm? Guess we’re aspect of the market is that you simply game built on the Doom RPG engine), Be- still not over that whole Garden of Eden can’t go out and buy a game for your cell jeweled (a puzzler that’s seen huge suc- thing. Simple, monochrome games like phone like you can with your Nintendo cess in the market), Megaman, Galaga, this became standards on many phones DS or Sony PSP.